I want your opinion, PD

[Freeky]

I'm writing this narrative essay, and I'm at the end.  I have two versions, and I'm not sure which is better.  At the beginning, I did similar to version 1, but I think version two looks cleaner.

Version 1:
Hai Linh, Gerty, Heisenberg and Anna tread carefully down the stairs to the next level of the dungeon.  Hai Linh was uncomfortable; it was cool and clammy, and she would have much preferred to bask in the sun, to bake until her scaly skin felt like it was glowing from all the sun it had absorbed.  She sometimes missed her homeland Xa Hoi in far off Tian, and frequently dreamed of  visiting her father's homeland Nagajor, full of warm volcanoes and her own people, the Nagaji.  People constantly mistook her for a serpentfolk, a people native to ths side of the world and apparently very vilainous.  The people she met reacted with surprise, fear, and in some cases hostility. 

Heisenberg, leading their way down and searching carefully for any traps (but not at the same time), found a tripwire.  Very thin and taught, it would have tripped the unwary, broken, and done who knows what after that.  Gerty, following him closely, had a glint in her eye that Hai Linh was coming to dread.  The blasted half-orc was feigning stupidity and incompetence again, Hai Linh was certain of it.  Nobody could live so long doing such abysmally foolish things all the time, and anyway Hai Linh had seen the barbarian use plenty of tactical ability and reasoning skills.  It had to be a sham.  Hai Linh knew what was coming as Gerty removed a torch from her pack.  Gerty didn't need light to see.  Neither did Anna and Heisenberg, they being of dwarf and half-orc persuasion respectively, and Hai Linh already had out the carcass of a glow beetle she had killed the day before.

Despite her calling of paladinhood and her beloved goddess Shelyn's teachings of tolerance and forgiveness and love for all things as well as reverance for beauty and art, Hai Linh had had enough idiocy for one day.  (Despite not wanting to start acting like a fuckup right at the beginning of the session, I had had enough idiocy for all weekend, used up the day before when I had played with a new group, filled with players way, way worse than either myself or Ross, and a DM who doesn't know how to control a table or reward his players.)   Don't you do it, Gerty, don't you dare...  she thought to herself. (Don't you do it, Ross, don't you dare... I thought to myself.)  She placed a hand on her father's katana, ready to draw.  (I placed my hand on my d20, ready to roll.) There ought to be a law against stupidity, she thought, and any guilt she might have felt at what she knew was coming was washed away.  She would gladly pray for forgiveness later, for weeks if she had to in order to regain her deity's favor, if she could but teach this one lesson in seemingly the only way the blasted shammer pretended to know how to learn.
 
Gerty threw the torch at the wire.  Hai Linh struck out with her blade, quicker than thought.

Luckily, they both missed.[/font]

Version 2:
Hai Linh, Gerty, Heisenberg and Anna tread carefully down the stairs to the next level of the dungeon.  Hai Linh was uncomfortable; it was cool and clammy, and she would have much preferred to bask in the sun, to bake until her scaly skin felt like it was glowing from all the sun it had absorbed.  She sometimes missed her homeland Xa Hoi in far off Tian, and frequently dreamed of  visiting her father's homeland Nagajor, full of warm volcanoes and her own people, the Nagaji.  People constantly mistook her for a serpentfolk, a people native to ths side of the world and apparently very vilainous.  The people she met reacted with surprise, fear, and in some cases hostility.

Heisenberg, leading their way down and searching carefully for any traps (but not at the same time), found a tripwire.  Very thin and taught, it would have tripped the unwary, broken, and done who knows what after that.  Gerty, following him closely, had a glint in her eye that Hai Linh was coming to dread.  The blasted half-orc was feigning stupidity and incompetence again, Hai Linh was certain of it.  Nobody could live so long doing such abysmally foolish things all the time, and anyway Hai Linh had seen the barbarian use plenty of tactical ability and reasoning skills.  It had to be a sham.  Hai Linh knew what was coming as Gerty removed a torch from her pack.  Gerty didn't need light to see.  Neither did Anna and Heisenberg, they being of dwarf and half-orc persuasion respectively, and Hai Linh already had out the carcass of a glow beetle she had killed the day before.

Despite her calling of paladinhood and her beloved goddess Shelyn's teachings of tolerance and forgiveness and love for all things as well as reverance for beauty and art, Hai Linh had had enough idiocy for one day. Don't you do it, Gerty, don't you dare...  she thought to herself.  She placed a hand on her father's katana, ready to draw.  There ought to be a law against stupidity, she thought, and any guilt she might have felt at what she knew was coming was washed away.  She would gladly pray for forgiveness later, for weeks if she had to in order to regain her deity's favor, if she could but teach this one lesson in seemingly the only way the blasted shammer pretended to know how to learn.
 
Gerty threw the torch at the wire.  Hai Linh struck out with her blade, quicker than thought.

Luckily, they both missed.

[Freeky]

For the record, I later redacted my attack, because I'm a paladin, but this makes for a better story.